West Ham United face a centre-back crisis ahead of their games against Frankfurt and Arsenal this week, after losing Craig Dawson to suspension.

West Ham United suffered a bitter end to Sunday’s trip to Stamford Bridge, giving up a red card, a penalty (which was saved), and a goal in the final five minutes.

Craig Dawson’s red card means he’s now suspended for their match against Arsenal, though he’ll be free to feature against Frankfurt in the Europa League in midweek.

That’s the latest in a long list of defensive woes for West Ham, as they’d already lost Issa Diop, Angelo Ogbonna, and Kurt Zouma to injury. As it stands, it doesn’t seem like the trio will return to action this week.

If that’s the case, that’s effectively all of West Ham’s senior centre-backs out of the game against Arsenal.

West Ham have other players who can play centre-back, with Aaron Cresswell and Ben Johnson filling in as part of a back-three against Chelsea on Sunday.

As mentioned, that defence managed to keep Chelsea out until the 90th minute, so the absences don’t mean Arsenal are going to have an easy time.

But with Dawson dropping out of the side, things are even worse for David Moyes’ side now. They’ll likely have to try something like dropping Declan Rice into the back three alongside the two full-backs.

If nothing else, the situation has to give Arsenal some confidence going into another must-win game for Champions League football.